Alan Hodgkin
Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin Goldman–Hodgkin–Katz voltage equation | |
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Spouse | Marion Rous |
Children | Sarah, Deborah, Jonathan Hodgkin, and Rachel |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Physiology Biophysics |
Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
Early life and education
Hodgkin was born in
Because of poor eyesight he was unable to study medicine and eventually ended up working for a bank in Banbury. As members of the Society of Friends, George and Mary opposed the Military Service Act of 1916, which introduced conscription, and had to endure a great deal of abuse from their local community, including an attempt to throw George in one of the town canals.[3] In 1916, George Hodgkin travelled to Armenia as part of an investigation of distress. Moved by the misery and suffering of Armenian refugees he attempted to go back there in 1918 on a route through the Persian Gulf (as the northern route was closed because of the October Revolution in Russia). He died of dysentery in Baghdad on 24 June 1918, just a few weeks after his youngest son, Keith, had been born.[4]
From an early life on, Hodgkin and his brothers were encouraged to explore the country around their home, which instilled in Alan an interest in
School and university
Alan started his education at The Downs School where his contemporaries included future scientists Frederick Sanger, Alec Bangham, "neither outstandingly brilliant at school" according to Hodgkin,[8] as well as future artists Lawrence Gowing and Kenneth Rowntree. After the Downs School, he went on to Gresham's School where he overlapped with future composer Benjamin Britten as well as Maury Meiklejohn.[9] He ended up receiving a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge in botany, zoology and chemistry.[10]
Between school and college, he spent May 1932 at the Freshwater Biological Station at Wray Castle based on a recommendation of his future Director of Studies at Trinity, Carl Pantin.[11] After Wray Castle, he spent two months with a German family in Frankfurt as "in those days it was thought highly desirable that anyone intending to read science should have a reasonable knowledge of German."[12] After his return to England in early August 1932, his mother Mary was remarried to Lionel Smith (1880–1972),[13] the eldest son of A. L. Smith, whose daughter Dorothy was also married to Alan's uncle Robert Howard Hodgkin.[14]
In the autumn of 1932, Hodgkin started as a freshman scholar at Trinity College where his friends included
During his studies, Hodgkin, who described himself as "having been brought up as a supporter of the British Labour Party"[20] was friends with communists[21] and actively participated in the distribution of anti-war pamphlets.[22] At Cambridge, he knew James Klugmann[23] and John Cornford,[24] but he emphasised in his autobiography that none of his friends "made any serious effort to convert me [to Communism], either then or later."[25] From 1935 to 1937, Hodgkin was a member of the Cambridge Apostles.[26]
Pre-war research
Hodgkin started conducting experiments on how electrical activity is transmitted in the sciatic nerve of frogs in July 1934.[27] He found that a nerve impulse arriving at a cold or compression block, can decrease the electrical threshold beyond the block, suggesting that the impulse produces a spread of an electrotonic potential in the nerve beyond the block.[28] In 1936, Hodgkin was invited by Herbert Gasser, then director of the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, to work in his laboratory during 1937–38. There he met Rafael Lorente de Nó[29] and Kenneth Stewart Cole with whom he ended up publishing a paper.[30] During that year he also spent time at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory where he was introduced to the squid giant axon,[31] which ended up being the model system with which he conducted most of the research that eventually led to his Nobel Prize. In the spring of 1938, he visited
After his return to Cambridge he started collaborating with
Wartime activities
Despite his
Providing a readable account of the little-known piece of military history that he was a part of during World War II was a main motivation for Hodgkin to write his autobiography Chance and Design: Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War.[40]
1945–1963: Action potential theory and Nobel Prize
As the
After being released from military service in August 1945 upon Adrian's request, Hodgkin was able to restart his experiments in collaboration with Bernard Katz and his pre-war collaborator Andrew Huxley. They spent the summers of 1947, 1948, and 1949 at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory where they continued to measure resting and action potentials from inside the giant axon of the squid.[42] Together with Katz, he provided evidence that the permeability of the neuronal cell membrane for sodium increased during an action potential, thus allowing sodium ions to diffuse inward.[43] The data they had obtained in 1949 resulted in a series of five papers published in The Journal of Physiology that described what became later known as the Hodgkin–Huxley model of the action potential and eventually earned Hodgkin and Huxley the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[44][45][46][47][48] Building on work by Kenneth S. Cole[49] they used a technique of electrophysiology, known as the voltage clamp to measure ionic currents through the membranes of squid axons while holding the membrane voltage at a set level. They proposed that the characteristic shape of the action potential is caused by changes in the selective permeability of the membrane for different ions, specifically sodium, potassium, and chloride. A model that relies on a set of differential equations and describes each component of an excitable cell as an electrical element was in good agreement with their empirical measurements.[48][50]
The cell membrane depolarisation sequence where a small depolarization leads to an increase in sodium permeability, which leads to influx of sodium ions, which in turn depolarizes the membrane even more[51] is now known as the Hodgkin cycle.[52]
In addition, Hodgkin and Huxley's findings led them to hypothesize the existence of ion channels on cell membranes, which were confirmed only decades later. Confirmation of ion channels came with the development of the patch clamp leading to a Nobel prize in 1991 for Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann, and in 2003 for Roderick MacKinnon.[53]
After establishing ion movements across a selectively permeable cell membrane as the mechanism of the action potential, Hodgkin turned his attention to how the ionic interchange that occurs during the action potential could be reversed afterwards. Together with
Later career and administrative positions
From 1951 to 1969, Hodgkin was the Foulerton Professor of the Royal Society at Cambridge. In 1970 he became the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Biophysics at Cambridge. Around this time he also ended his experiments on nerve at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and switched his focus to visual research which he could do in Cambridge with the help of others while serving as president of the Royal Society. Together with Denis Baylor and Peter Detwiler he published a series of papers on turtle photoreceptors.[62][63][64][65][66][67][68]
From 1970 to 1975 Hodgkin served as the 53rd president of the Royal Society (PRS). During his tenure as PRS, he was knighted in 1972 and admitted into the Order of Merit in 1973.[69] From 1978 to 1984 he was the 34th
He served on the Royal Society Council from 1958 to 1960 and on the Medical Research Council from 1959 to 1963. He was foreign secretary of the Physiological Society from 1961 to 1967. He also held additional administrative posts such as Chancellor, University of Leicester, from 1971 to 1984
Awards and honours
- 1988 – W.H. Helmerich III Award of the Retina Research Foundation[70]
- 1983 – Lord Crook Medal of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers[71]
- 1982 – F.O. Schmitt Medal and Award 1983
- 1977 – Hon. DSc, University of Oxford
- 1975 – Hon. Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences
- 1974 – Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences of the USA[72]
- 1973 – Order of Merit (O.M.)
- 1973 – Foreign Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Medical Sciences, VIII Class)
- 1972 – Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire(K.B.E.)
- 1972 – Hon. Fellow, Indian National Science Academy
- 1970 – President of the Royal Society (PRS)[1]
- 1968 – Member, Pontifical Academy of Sciences
- 1968 – Foreign Member, American Philosophical Society
- 1966 – President of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
- 1965 – Copley Medal of the Royal Society
- 1964 – Foreign Member, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
- 1964 – Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina[73]
- 1963 – Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine together with Andrew Fielding Huxley and John Carew Eccles (for their research on synapses)[74]
- 1962 – Foreign Hon. Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1958 – The Royal Society
- 1958 – Hon. MD, University of Louvain
- 1956 – Hon. MD, University of Berne
- 1955 – Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians
- 1948 – Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)[1]
A portrait of Hodgkin by Michael Noakes hangs in Trinity College's collection.[75]
Publications
- The Conduction of the Nervous Impulse (1964)
- Chance and Design: Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War (1992)
Personal life
During his stay at the Rockefeller Institute in 1937, Hodgkin got to know the American pathologist Francis Peyton Rous[76] who was later awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[77] When Rous invited him for dinner to his home, Hodgkin got to know Rous' daughter, Marni, who was then a student at Swarthmore College.[76] He proposed to her before going back to England in 1938, but she rejected him.[78] When Hodgkin briefly returned to the US in 1944 (see Wartime activities), they reunited and got married on 31 March.[79]
Their first daughter, Sarah, was born in April 1945, shortly before the Hodgkins moved back to Cambridge.[80] They had three more children: Deborah Hodgkin (born 2 May 1947),[81] Jonathan Hodgkin (born 24 August 1949),[82] and Rachel Hodgkin (born June 1951).[83] Marni became a Children's Book Editor at
Death
Hodgkin suffered from a series of medical problems that began soon after his retirement as Master of Trinity. In 1989 he had surgery to relieve pressure on the
See also
References
- ^ .
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 5
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 7–9
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 10
- ^ a b Hodgkin 1992, pp. 11–12
- PMID 6342510.
- ^ Protection of Birds Measures Urged By Royal Society in The Times, Saturday, 29 March 1930; pg. 14; Issue 45474; col C
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 25
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 27–29
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 30
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 31
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 34
- ^ "SMITH, Arthur Lionel Forster" (PDF). Retrieved 3 February 2023.
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 40
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 49
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- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 50
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 55
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 66
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 38
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 48
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 53
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 79
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 83–87
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 80
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 87
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 63
- PMID 16994885.
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 92
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- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 113
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- ISBN 0-12-660246-8.
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- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 140
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 141–156
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 233–239
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. ix–xi
- PMID 20281590.
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 271–290
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- PMID 14946712.
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- ^ PMID 12991237.
- ^ Cole, Kenneth S. (1949). "Dynamic electrical characteristics of the squid axon membrane". Archives des sciences physiologique. 3 (2): 253–258.
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 299–303
- S2CID 86282580.
- PMID 20123750.
- PMID 22787170.
- PMID 14368574.
- S2CID 32516710.
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1997". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
- ^ "Nomination Archive". nobelprize.org. April 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 360–369
- ^ "Alan Hodgkin Facts". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "Alan Hodgkin Banquet speech". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1966". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- PMID 4766219.
- PMID 4449053.
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- S2CID 4257477.
- PMID 225478.
- PMID 7381784.
- ^ "Sir Alan Hodgkin". britannica.com. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "History of Major Award Recipients". retinaresearchfnd.org. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "Support for Research". spectaclemakers.com. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "Alan Hodgkin". Nasonline.org. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
- ^ "Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin". leopoldina.org. German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "Trinity College, University of Cambridge". BBC Your Paintings. Archived from the original on 11 May 2014.
- ^ a b Hodgkin 1992, p. 100
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1966". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 112
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, pp. 235–239
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 254
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 310
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 319
- ^ Hodgkin 1992, p. 352
- ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (22 December 1998). "Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, 84, A Nobelist in Nerve Research". The New York Times.
- PMID 9923671.
Bibliography
- Hodgkin, Alan (1992). Chance & Design - Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45603-6.
External links
- The Master of Trinity at Trinity College, Cambridge
- Alan Hodgkin on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1963 The Ionic Basis of Nervous Conduction
- Portraits of Alan Hodgkin at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- BBC obituary
- Action Potential Paper
- Imperial War Museum Interview